Drugs Trials Company Looks Cool in New £1.5m Facility
13 June 2008
A specialist company which facilitates temperature-sensitive pharmaceutical drugs trials has officially opened a new £1.5m state-of-the-art “chill cabinet” facility in South Wales and announced the creation of 25 new jobs.
Biotec Distribution Wales Limited’s new premises on the Bridgend Industrial Estate houses all it needs for its highly specialist niche market business of managing the Qualified Person certification, import, labelling and assembly, storage and worldwide distribution of temperature-sensitive drugs for clinical trials.
The company was established in 1997 and works on behalf of global pharmaceutical companies, many located outside the EU, which want to get their products into clinical trials in Europe with the aim of eventually marketing them.
To do this as non-EU manufacturers, they are required to have their processes audited and their products certified by a Qualified Person in the EU and by companies licensed to carry out these activities. As one such company, Biotec specialises in drugs which need to be packed, stored and transported at particularly low temperatures – in some cases as cold as -80 degrees centigrade.
With a growing client base in Canada and Japan, but in particular in the USA and Israel, Biotec had outgrown its original premises on the Brynmenyn Industrial Estate in Bridgend, and made the move to the new bespoke building with funding from bank facilities, a loan from Finance Wales, and the management team’s own investment.
The package also included a £340,000 Regional Selective Assistance grant from the Welsh Assembly Government negotiated by professional advisors Broomfield & Alexander, who continue to help the company with business planning and accountancy services.
Biotec managing director Marc Weinzweig said the new building would enable the company to achieve its growth plans.
“At the moment, we are running in excess of 80 drug trials for our clients, and with our new operation here in Bridgend, are geared up to undertake many more,” he said. “With 80 per cent of our growth from client recommendation, we are very confident that this investment will pay off. “With a building of this quality, designed to do exactly what we need, we have somewhere we can be proud of when we bring our clients to see us.”
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